Category: The Healthy Teacher

As a new teacher, you'll be looking back over the last year and feel as though you've been through a whirlwind. You've learned so much, you've come so far, but you may still feel like there's a mountain to climb. I asked the teacher community on Twitter, "what piece of advice do you wish you …

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As teachers, we always talk about the progress of our students. We watch them arrive (if you're a secondary school teacher like me) bright-eyed in year 7, and grow almost unrecognizably through to year 11 and sometimes even on to the sixth form. It's one of my favourite parts of the job, which I always …

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During any holiday season, there always seems to be a big split amongst the teaching community on social media. There are those who are using the time to get ahead with their marking, planning or even going into the classroom to get things organized for the first day back. Then there are those who believe …

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As an English teacher and a writer, I'm obviously all for reading. It won't surprise you to know that when parents of my students ask me what they can be doing to help their children, 90% of the time reading is the answer. That's because of the transformative effect it has... but I think you …

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"I haven't got time for that." "There just aren't enough hours in the day?" How often have you used one of the above phrases? I would guess, knowing the pressures of modern life, especially those for us involved in education, it's fairly frequent. It seems to be a symptom of our modern age that we're …

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I wasn't a teacher before there was e-mail, but I can imagine that it was a different world. Not commenting on that e-mail chain about a particular student's deteriorating behaviour, checking meeting minutes at the weekend or reading back over a conversation you had six months ago. For all the good things e-mail as brought …

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Over the few weeks before the Christmas break, I was feeling burned out. To an extent, I know that's normal - the evenings are getting darker, work's busy, and I put myself under pressure to get things done. The result though wasn't nice, I felt irritable, unfocused, tired, lethargic and apathetic. If you've read my …

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UPDATE! (5th April 2019) I'm really pleased to show you this. Finally, after focusing on writing for the last few months, I received the proof copy of my book Kathmandu today. Click the picture below to read the first two chapters: 2019 the year of focus As I write, it's a couple of …

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Saying no to something is never popular. People won't praise you for it, they won't thank you for it - however, it could be one of the most important words of your professional career. As teachers, we are great at doing lots of things, we've always got things on the go - but, I think …

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The world can be a pretty stressful place and stress is a natural thing. It exists to sharpen our senses, allowing us to can act quickly, get out of danger or do something important. The problem comes when people are stressed all the time. When stress is compounded upon stress like a giant balancing act …